Newsflash

Released - 22 March 2018

Primarily because of the matter discussed in paragraph 2 hereunder (Status of the exercise to get a court hearing), we shall be convening a Special General Meeting, hopefully next month, April 2018.

In addition a report-back will be given on meetings, with senior members of the banking and agricultural sectors, aimed at ascertaining more about the proposed land expropriation bill and how it might affect our claim.

We are in the process of finalizing the details (venue, dates etc) of the SGM and will advise as soon as the arrangements have been made.

This meeting is going to be very important. Please make every effort to attend.

2. Status of the exercise to get a court hearing.

Because of the grindingly slow progress, particularly in the matter of the Claimants expert witness report, the legal team has proposed that LCAG should make an application for an order against the Claimants to have their restitution claim “struck out”. If the application is successful, it will mean, in essence, that the claim on our land no longer exists.

A necessary pre-requisite, a notice of intent to seek an order, has already been issued to the relevant parties and the application (founding affidavit) for the order is being prepared.

At the very least the Claimants have had since 17 September 2004 (13 and a half years) to obtain their expert witness report. (17 September 2004 is the date the claim was gazetted and the date when we first knew of it.) In reality the Claimants have had much longer than that – bearing in mind that the cut-off date for the lodgement of claims was 31 December 1998 (over 19 years ago!!). And, because it must have taken the Claimants some time to research and prepare the claim before it could be lodged, it is quite conceivable that the Claimants have been procrastinating over their expert witness report for well over 20 years!!

3. Funds.

February receipts from members, for outstanding subscriptions, exceeded expenses by R20 thousand but were still far short of what has been budgeted for. The best estimate shows that LCAG needs a further R200 thousand (minimum without allowing for any contingencies).

Please will all members make “LCAG subscriptions” a general topic of conversation. There is a real need to heighten awareness, in the community, of the situation that LCAG is facing.

The committee is aware that a number of members are considering clubbing together to dig-into-their-pockets to fund the shortfall by means of a special voluntary contribution. Possible conditions, to compensate for the ‘risk taking’ that this would involve, include:-

Interest, at 12% per annum, to be paid on any special contributions;

Repayment of ALL contributions (special contributions and normal past contributions) before any refund is made to any other member.

Any such conditions would require an amendment to the constitution in a General Meeting (Annual or Special). Obviously the option to make a ‘special’ contribution would have to be open to all members.

4. Expropriation of land without compensation.

Subsequent to the ANC’s national elective conference in December, when Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the ANC had resolved to start the process towards a constitutional amendment of Section 25 (the property clause in the Constitution) to allow for land expropriation without compensation, there have been a number of developments, as follows:-

During the SONA on Friday 16 February, the matter was mentioned again.

On Tuesday 27 February 2018, the National Assembly adopted a motion, proposed by the Economic Freedom Fighters, for a committee to review Section 25 of the Constitution which concerns the rights of property ownership. The motion was adopted with a vote of 241 in support, and 83 against.

Following the adoption of the motion in Parliament the press has been full of the topic. However, if you have been living ‘on a desert island’ these past few weeks, here are seven easy-to-read articles that express the opinions of Khulekani Magubane (which nicely puts the matter into context), Cas Coovadia (Banking Association of SA), Annelize Crosby (Head of Centre of Excellence on Land at Agri SA), Mondli Makhanya (really worth reading!), Ruth Hall (Professor at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape), Sihle Ngobese (spokesperson for the Western Cape department of social development writing in his personal capacity), and Johan Prins (Johan Prins is Director (Strategy) at SPACE writing in his personal capacity) :-

It can be expected that additional articles will be released on a regular basis.

Essentially what will happen now is that a ‘select committee’ will review the whole issue and report back to Parliament by the end of August.

Despite the foregoing it is also worth noting that, during the budget speech on 21 February, it was stated that R10.8 BILLION had been set aside to settle the 2851 land claims outstanding from the first round of land claims. (Our claim would be one of the 2851.) So, perhaps, ‘doom and gloom’ should not be our only emotions!!

__________________o0o_________________

The above matters are updates to the recent previous newsflashes and, for clarity, should be read in conjunction with them.

As a formality I should like to record that the opinions stated above are my own and are made without prejudice to any legal or any other position that may exist insofar as the Broederstroom Land Claim is concerned.